Christina Katerina and the Box | A Best Picture Book Review

Christina Katerina may be the most inventive child ever!

Christina Katerina and the Box

This wonderful book is sadly only available used, or find it at your library!

"Active imagination" does not even begin to describe Christina Katerina. This is a child who lives fully in the moment, revelling in whatever is taking place around her. When her mother gets a new refrigerator, Christina Katerina commandeers the giant cardboard refrigerator box, parking it on the front lawn.

Her father helps her convert it into a clubhouse, and it's a great clubhouse. It's even better when her friend Fats comes back from vacation and helps her run the club. Until Fats gets in a snit and sits on the box, collapsing it. Her mother's relief at being able to throw the box away now is premature, however, as Christina Katerina can instantly see that, of course, it's not a clubhouse, it's a racecar! When the racecar is wrecked, Christina Katerina instantly converts it to another use, and another, and another, until it is down to being a flat dance floor. When Fats tries to clean it with the hose and it finally disintegrates completely, her mother is finally able to clean the whole thing away, to her very short-lived satisfaction. You see, Fats's mother just got some new appliances, and Christina Katerina told Fats to bring the cardboard washer and dryer boxes on over ... her mom won't mind a bit!

Christina Katerina and the Box

Author and Illustrator

Patrcia Lee Gauch and Doris Burn

Patricia Lee Gauch is an author, editor, and teacher. She has a Ph.D. in Literature and has taught writing and children's literature at the college level, and was editorial director of Philomel Books for 25 years. Her beloved books include the Christina Katerina series and the Tanya series as well as many others.

Addressing Perfectionism

Christina Katerina and the Box, along with another book titled Regina's Big Mistake, are two books I read over and over to my oldest daughter to try to help her see that she need not be stifled by her inborn perfectionism, but there is a big difference in the approach the two books take.

Regina is obviously a stifled perfectionist, but Christina Katerina is just the opposite: a vivid girl living in the moment, and whatever disaster wrecks the current moment is transformed in a flash to a new scenario so perfect in itself that the "messed up" version from before is forgotton almost instantly.